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Your New Death Cab For Cutie: Telekinesis


Posted by Hartley On Jan 15, 2009

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Not the actual album art

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This isn't the album art either, but it is what Telekinesis looks like obscured by a vintage Leica

Whether you look like this:

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Or this:

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Or this:

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Or even this:

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You probably loved Death Cab For Cutie. Whether you were a fan from the early days when they were still being compared to the far more scruffy and jammy and "difficult" fractured 90's guitar-rock forbearers, Built To Spill, or you jumped on the emotional pop OC bandwagon and fell in love with Ben Gibbard's sensitive floppy-haired scribblings along with Mischa Barton's effortless left-coast chic, or you were the proud parent of a child in Highschool 3 years ago - hell, you probably loved DCFC too. I say "loved" past tense because DCFC-front guy, Ben Gibbard, is now happily-married to the hottest, hippest chick that has ever roamed the earth, Zooey Deschanel (star of my favorite film, All The Real Girls, and one of my favorite albums from last year, She and Him's Volume 1, and fellow fan of obscure(?) 70's songwriter babe Kirsty MacColl), and the guy just has to be stoked. And anybody with even a little bit of a record collection knows that there is no bigger enemy of good music than "happiness." Plus, as is wont to happen to all of us, the guys are just getting old. Hell, our label-friends at Barsuk just reissued a 10-year anniversary double disc edition of Death Cab's debut, There's something About Airplanes. If "happiness" is the biggest enemy of creativity, old age isn't really doing it any favors either. So there goes the neighborhood.

Like clockwork, I come to feed the need. I offer you DCFC lovers: Telekinesis. Telekinesis is the recording nom-de-plum of Seattle-based songwriter, Micheal Benjamin Lerner's musings for Merge Records. The dudes originally titled debut,  Telekinesis! isn't out 'til April, but I'm here to tell you it's outstanding and perhaps more importantly, it sounds like DCFC at their best. Of course it was produced by Death Cab For Cutie's guitar player/studio meastro, Chris Walla, cause Telekinesis! is filled with all the same sentiment and exuberance and hooks and boyish clean channeled guitar-tone of Death Cab. Close your eyes and pretend Ben Gibbard's bespeckled Autumn DeWilde-photographed face is serenading you with the new sounds of settling. Hell, there's even a few Telekinesis jams that sound like the Jesus and Mary Chain, and another bunch that recall Elliott Smith when he wasn't pondering stabbing himself in the chest. In short, it's my favorite new Bank Robber "music." I should also add we have the brand new record from M. Ward which I will call my "favorite" Bank Robber "music" next week. But at least until then, Telekinesis, rules the roost (read: itunes playlist). And you can listen too:

Here's "Coast of Carolina" off Telekinesis' Telekinesis! out 4/17 on Merge Records.

Until next time music supervisor friends,

HG 

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